The Flash is back! That’s the good news. The bad news is that the episode wasn’t one of the best. It’s hard to find fault with a season premiere like this because it has to do so much in such a short time. Wrap up last season’s cliffhanger (if any) deal with the aftermath of the previous season (if any) and set up for the new season as well as tell a story in and of itself.
Standard warning: There are spoilers below.
And this episode did all of those things. It (finally) revealed how the wormhole was closed when Firestorm separated in the eye of the storm (which bothers me, more on that in a bit) with Ronnie Raymond not making it back safely, the resulting splitting up of the team, and Barry going lone wolf. It dealt with Barry’s feelings about losing a friend and team member, and surprisingly, his friends and family deal with it in a good way and Barry doesn’t resist too much. Accepting that he can’t do it alone and that Team Flash did a good job when they worked together.
We also learn that Harrison Wells had one last surprise for Barry. His confession. Yes, that’s right. Wells videotaped a confession his murder of Nora Allen, thereby exonerating Barrys father of the crime. So yay!
Unfortunately Henry doesn’t stick around. And one can understand why. As great as it is to be free, he finds it hard to be part of Barry’s life after being outside of it for 14 years.
Regarding Firestorm separating in the wormhole to close it (Barry was only able to stabilize it). The argument was that by separating, the energy release would be enough to disrupt the stability of the singularity, thereby collapsing it. Since when did separating cause an energy backlash? They did it several times within Star Labs and there was no energy release of that magnitude. If there had been, it would have killed people. Maybe they meant that breaking the suit caused it? Not sure since we get a tiny glimpse of Firestorm touching his right shoulder and nothing else. Including no real explanation.
We do get our first glimpse of Jay Garrick but it’s the last 10 seconds or so of the episode, so not much to report there.
All in all the episode was decent. It cleared up several questions from last season,even if the wormhole resolution was less than awesome. We’ve heard the name Zoom, and had our first villain-of-the-week, and seen Barry and the team grow a bit. A solid, if not stellar season premier.
Last Updated on January 12, 2019.
